Feeling European: celebrating multiculturalism in our schools. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Feeling European: celebrating multiculturalism in our schools.

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

Everybody is good at something, we all have something to contribute, and we all have the right to be treated equally – this was the starting point for our collaborative project. ‘Well-being’ is a term our learners are familiar with, but what exactly does it mean? We believe that a sense of belonging is key to well-being – to our family, our community and to wider structures that protect and support us. Observing different ways of living enriches and broadens our thinking, but essentially it also helps us identify what we have in common with other people in other countries. Our main objective, then, was to give students an opportunity to participate in a school exchange so that they may succeed in education and to broaden their view of what they could achieve beyond school so that they see it as a place that will help them achieve their future goals. Linked to this aim was the desire to throw some light on inequality and exclusion, issues that may affect them in their everyday experience, but they do not know how to express. We hoped that by celebrating multiculturalism, they will see cultural diversity in their school as an opportunity, rather than a threat.

Our two schools are culturally diverse, with a high percentage of pupils’ families coming from different parts of Eastern Europe and Africa. In 2015 our schools came together for an eTwinning project involving second year students. Since that time, we have been discussing the possibility of a student exchange and considering in particular how we could enable students who may have limited financial means to participate in such an exchange. A group of students from each school travelled with two teachers for a week to the partner country where they were integrated into the host school’s timetable, and also participated in activities locally of cultural/historical and geographical significance. Running concurrently to this was a ‘Pen Pals’ project in which a wider group of students who did not have the opportunity to travel could also participate. The project outputs included digital magazines and our shared eTwinning Twinspace where we documented the mobilities, compiled our project resources and evaluations, and shared our project digital magazines and journals.

The results from this exchange can be seen in attitudes and competences gained by students and include the raising of students’ expectations of what they can achieve, in relation to language acquisition of English/Spanish, but also regarding the attainment of other skills, for example: interpersonal , communication and organisational. By experiencing everyday living and learning in another country, they have more respect and tolerance for different perspectives and ways of living, and in general are more interested and curious about the diversity of cultures within Europe. They have become more aware of how ideas and meaning are communicated and expressed in different cultures. Having participated in this project they have a deeper understanding of what it means to be European, and a greater appreciation of the benefits it brings: the safeguarding of equality and promotion of multiculturalism, as well as the multiple opportunities for study/work/travel. Ultimately, we believe the experience has improved their educational attainment in their second level education.

The impact of the project also included changed attitudes and improved competences for teachers, other staff, and the local community. Teachers have learned from observing teaching and learning in another country, and from exchanging good practices. Within each school participation in the project led to a sense of achievement, and collegiality was strengthened. We strongly believe that establishing a partnership between the schools has increased students’ motivation in their language-learning and in their educational attainment. The mobilities made the target language come alive, evident in students’ repeated comment during the trips: “Now I understand!” – they could now see that studying a language in school was a means to an end. And this increase in motivation and excitement about learning a language, experiencing a different culture and making friends in another country, has had a knock-on effect within each school. We hope this partnership will be long-lasting and will continue to allow cross-border cooperation and exchange of learning into the future.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 36092 Eur

Project Coordinator

Coláiste Mhuirlinne/Merlin College & Country: IE

Project Partners

• IES JOSE VILAPLANA